Mark Andreessen: NYT Should Shut Down Print Edition "as soon as possible".

yes - everything but the ads plus the on line archives- my kindle account links to NYT.com site.
Format is great and makes for much faster read. Each section has summary page with brief synopsis of stories. You can click on to read full article or just move on.

 

Interesting question. Companies are going to advertise somewhere, so they'll try to find the most effective option. Whether that is online or TV or whatever, I don't know. I do know I have never purchased a single thing as a result of an online ad. I rarely even notice them.

 

Andreessen should be locked in an octagon with the dude who bought Orange County and let 'em go two-out-of-three falls.

 

Me.

 

Andreessen did invest in Digg, so not all of his online news bets have paid off.

 

I said "people in the world," not "Canadians up in that weird land."

Regardless, OK, I guess I exaggerated my point too much, which is this: The NYT readership is a high-brow and high-money group. They've moved to technology. So the benefits of a print product are particularly low for them as opposed to probably most other papers.

 

I understand risk and all but let's say I own a small business printing birthday cards and business isn't what it used to be but I'm still making money.

My cards are beautiful, unique and geared to my customers.

Should I continue my niche business and cater to my loyal clientele or should I dump every bit of brand I have to push a birthday card website that churns mostly generic crap because that isn't where the money is but because the money might be there in the future?

go!

 

The problem is a lot of niche businesses don't have public shareholders to answer to. Investors in public companies want to see growth every quarter, no matter the cost.

 

Andreessen is from a world where you don't wait for that next thing to eventually put you out of business, because "eventually" can be 18 hours from now.

It's an interesting perspective. How much does the Times spend putting the printed product together? Would the savings there come close to offsetting the revenue decline? And how much more valuable would their online ads become if that were the platform?

 

Did anyone here watch The Men Who Built America on History Channel.

All of the guys they profiled had the ability to see what was "next". Vanderbilt in particular had made millions in the ferry business. But, when trains came along, he sold all of his shipping interests and went all in on railroads.

And that's sort of what Andreessen is recommending. If you're going to be the leader in digital news, dump everything else and go for it.

 

This is also what makes the Times unique -- it isn't generic crap. At 95 percent of daily newspapers, that is the case, but the Times has kept its quality high and thus still has something to sell. That's the big problem I see with someone like, say, Philly going behind a paywall -- who the hell is going to pay for that? The Inquirer and Daily News of 10 years ago, sure, but it's barely worth the quarter for the printed product now.

The Times, though ... even on a bad day, you'll find five stories worth reading.

 

if only the Times could bribe officials like Vanderbilt and the other tycoons did, or secure federal land grants.